


Hidden in Plain Sight

by orphan_account



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Amnesia, Inception Big Bang Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 23:30:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It’s been two years since Arthur dropped off the face of the Earth, but Eames should’ve known better than to think a man dead when there was never a body.--And the last thing that Eames sees is Arthur and how he always remembers him: in his whip-black suit and a smoking gun in his hand.





	Hidden in Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this landed probably five miles away from the original premise of the story I proposed for the Inception Big Bang - but it's a story nonetheless! It was meant to be a pseudo-Winter Soldier AU, but be pre-warned, it is anything but. There are two more chapters that I am working through, but a few personal commitments have unfortunately prevented me from posting the full thing by deadline. :c
> 
> Several thank yous are required as well:  
1) The lovely mods of the [Inception Big Bang](https://inceptionbigbang.tumblr.com) for being completely understanding about not finishing in time and letting me post this chaptered instead <3  
2) A big thanks to the lovely anon who did the related, [ STUNNING artwork of the first chapter here](https://inceptionbigbang.tumblr.com/post/186660678629/inception-big-bang-2019-for-onefifthbusiness-art) that perfectly encapsulates the mood. *chef's kiss*  
3) Last but not least, to my own universal translator [bumblebeesknees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblebeesknees/pseuds/bumblebeesknees) who both incepted the origins of this idea into me, and then helped me with all the wonky parts when it nearly all fell apart @2am a week before deadline. I'd be dead in the ground without her.

Even in dreams, there is nothing worse than seeing a bullet fly through the front windshield of your vehicle, to watch the glass slowly fractal and crack, then explode around you in a thousand little pieces.

As the bullet embeds itself in the (luckily empty) middle backseat of the car, everything goes quiet. Eames sucks in a breath that never quite fully releases. 

His team on the other hand:

"What the _fuck_?" Harper, their extractor, curses only a second later, terrified from the back. 

At the same time, their point/driver Dani, lets go of the steering wheel and slams on the brakes. 

Except there is nowhere for them to go: their car is on the Golden Gate Bridge in the midst of bumper-to-bumper traffic, and to see it swerve is like watching like Bambi on ice, the harrowing _screeeech_ of metal against metal the only clue to how close they scrape past the Honda Odyssey on the left. 

"You never said anything about militarized projects," Eames jolts back to reality as their car comes to a grinding halt. Annoyance can't help but creep into his voice taking precedent over the fact that yes, they are three seconds from being fucked sideways; because yes, he's more experience than then these two and have encountered similar surprise situations before (see: the Moldova job, the Palos job, the Fischer job - the list runs incredibly long). He'd thus learnt his lesson and he specifically told Dani to check for this exact sort of situation.

"There wasn't anything to suggest that he had any _training_," Dani clips, straightening the car. There are cuts all over her face, one right above her jawline that angles her face in a way that rubs Eames the wrong way. The blazer she wears tugs strangely at Eames’ memory and all he thinks is that it doesn't fit her quite right, the front of it now covered in hundreds of small, glinting glass shards. 

"Oh really," Eames taunts, eyebrows raised. He too, shakes out the glass from his shirt, and at the same time, reloads his gun. "A multi-dollar billionaire who makes their fortune by selling highly stylized 'dream' vacations _not_ having dream-sharing security training? Why, I think I'd be a complete idiot not to look into that sort of thing." 

"I didn't think–" Dani starts. 

"Well, that's the root of the problem now isn't it? Not thinking–"

"_Enough_," Harper booms, his fist white-knuckled, clutching the handle of the door. "We need to get out _now_, before his projections turn on us–"

"Well, it's a little late for that now isn't it?" Eames comments dryly. 

Harper glares at him. "On three," Harper lets out a deep breath. At least Harper recognizes that dying two levels down is still a painful experience. "One, two, three–" 

And it is as Eames predicts – as soon as they roll out of the car, bullets begin flying. 

It's not exactly a revelation to Eames that this job is not going according to plan. There were red flags from the very brief of the job, that, in retrospect, should've have prevented Eames from even signing up with Harper and his crew in the first place. From the novice team to the pushy client, to the fact that the client asked them to perform _inception_ to secure his promotion – well, any good point and extractor team would've have balked and told the client, "keep your money, thanks; there's no way we're risking our minds to limbo just so you can secure your assistant secretary-to-secretary corporate promotion". 

But no, not Harper; Harper was part of the new dream-sharing generation who was willing to stretch any job as far as it could go despite his lack of experience. He was ambitious and hotheaded, an arse to work with – but he bid on all the top-dollar jobs, and wouldn't take no for an answer. 

Eames himself, still questions why he subjects himself to these kinds of jobs anymore. the ones with the highest stakes and the high-dollar rewards with poorly thought-out teams and egotistical clients – it's not like he even needs the money now anyways, as the Fischer job had left him flush probably for the next two lifetimes. 

What is it then? Money is money is money to Eames, and he's not sure he wants to peg himself as one motivated by challenging, stressful situations – because he's not. His definition of vacation has always been relaxing poolside versus throwing oneself into another person's subconscious in hopes of coming out alive. But Eames can't put his finger on it, the lack of drive he somehow inherited two years after he and Dom, Ariadne, and Yusuf pulled off inception on Robert Fischer. Why does he keep on doing the same things over and over again, putting his life on the line, chase the thrill - when he theoretically already has it all? 

Why is he _here_?

Doubt grips him. His vision suddenly going blurry for several seconds, a short enough period that Eames barely has time to panic before he can see again, readjust himself, realign. As his vision flickers, the cars in front of him appeared as metal walls that lined the bridge, the headlights of each of them like pairs of flinty brown eyes calling Eames a fraud.

But when he blinks again, reality sinks in and he realizes exactly where he is: two levels down in a dream with a bad point and an even worse extractor, hiding from a hail of bullets behind a minivan, Eames in the midst of trying to perform inception yet _again_.

"I think it's about time we just kill ourselves off," Eames says aloud, breaking up the thrum of gunfire, the yelling and the sharp blaring of car horns. His gun has nearly run dry, and the firing-to-impact lapses from the projections' weapons had quickened drastically like the distance between thunder and lighting as a storm draws ever closer, minimizing from three seconds to one. 

In such a stunning failure such as this, there is nothing to do but get out of the dream, pray to god that their chemist is actually competent with sedatives, and try again. 

"We could go one level deeper," Harper starts thinking, "that's what you did on that Fischer job–"

"No. _Absolutely not_," Eames refuses. Imagine being stuck in limbo with these idiots. Eames nearly puts the gun to his head to blow his brains out at the very thought.

"But that'll buy us some time, we just need to get the subject closer to us, bring him under–"

"So walk me through this," Eames can't help but release some of the growing irritation by grabbing Harper's shoulders and shaking him hard. "You want to search all these cars to figure out which one the subject jumped into? While thousands of militarized projections close in on us, you think we have enough time to 1) find the subject, 2) set up a proper kick, and most importantly, 3) _not die while we're under_?" 

"Okay, so _fucking help us_," Harper nearly screams through his teeth, his words drowned out by a hail of bullets as he throws Eames' hands off of him. "Help us think of something. When we asked you to be a part of this team, I was looking for someone who could guide us through inception, not some drunk who just sits on the sidelines and smirks at every fucking plan we come up with." 

"I never promised to be your Obi-wan in the ways of inception," Eames clarifies bluntly. "You said you needed a _forger_. I can pull out my phone right now with your texts if you want to get into the semantics of what exactly you hired me for."

"Yes, but we didn't know he was going to be an asshole who doesn't give a shit about anything."

"I don't have to care to do a good job," Eames says tightly, "and if you rather not have me here, I can take off right now." Eames puts the barrel of the gun to his head. 

"Do it," Harper goads, "I dare you." There is something ugly in his expression that works its way into Eames' skin, the way Harper's eyes burn furiously, his brows knitted together so intensely. Like all of this _matters_. It’s the face of someone angry at Eames, a boiling rage that itches under the skin – an expression that Eames recognizes easily, an expression Eames has seen so clearly before. "Run away like you've always done. Give up on the opportunity to make millions, and to prove to everyone you're not some fucking shtick who messed up big time, who walked out on his partner, leaving him out to dry-"

Eames’ heart drops in his chest. “You have no idea what you’ve even talking about–”

"Guys," Dani starts. 

"Everybody knows just how pathetic your track record has been as late, Eames. You know that right?" Harper eyes flash dangerously. "You were at the bottom of our list in terms of the people we wanted to hire, just because everyone knows what a mess of a human you are nowadays–"

"Guys–"

"–That all you do is you spend time in casinos and bars, gambling and drinking your life away. That you only take on forging jobs because you get off on pretending to be somebody else – to forget who you are, to forget what you've done–" 

A gunshot suddenly rings out from across the bridge. 

_Wham_! And the next thing Eames and Harper see is Dani's body hitting the ground. 

"What the fuck?" Harper immediately turns just as Dani's skull cracks open against the pavement, dark blood catching in the strands of her hair as it oozes through the rough lines woven between asphalt that make up the paved ground.

A car alarm suddenly goes off in the distance. 

_Bang_!

And then Harper too, ragdolls heavily into the ground. 

The silence that follows the lone gunshot rings loudly across the fog-covered bridge. 

Three seconds in, Eames finally releases the breath he had been holding. His fists as well, uncoil slowly, like unhinging two steel clamps. He was about to punch that bastard square in his face – talking as if he knew _Eames_, as if he was there, knew everything that happened – but Eames chalks it up to luck that a projection saved him from being heralded as a teammate-puncher, and being blacklisted from the dream-sharing industry entirely. 

As he inspects Harper's now lifeless body, he notices the single, neat gunshot wound that killed him – a bullet straight through Harper's forehead. 

Eames knows when his luck has run out. 

He puts his gun down. 

“Don’t shoot, I surrender,” he yells into the dense mist, with his hands out, held over his head. It's like walking through a wad of wool: Eames can barely see ten steps in front of him. He circles around his vehicle slowly, making his way through the wad of piled-up cars, the towering struts of the Golden Gate Bridge over him like the legs of red giants overhead. He quickly forges himself into someone else – average build and non-descript – merely a last minute gamble to come out of this situation with a shred of his dignity still in tact. 

Unfortunately, his heart isn't into it. Harper was right in that respect: Eames never cared about the job being done successfully or being done right. As soon as the mask comes up, Eames can feel it feather at its seams: he doesn't need a mirror to tell that the limbs on this body are too long, and the mash of features he's pulled up doesn't sit quite right on the face. 

Eames decides to let the mask go. It slides off him of him like a rush of water – and like that, Eames realizes he is standing defenseless on the Golden Gate Bridge surrounded by projections, completely and utterly alone. 

"Hello?" he calls out again. 

As the mist thickens around him, he only hears the soft crunch of gravel underfoot, the _cha-chik_ of someone reloading a gun. 

When Eames can finally make out the figure however, he's caught dead in his tracks. 

“_Arthur_?” the name is ripped out of Eames, the shock of seeing who he thinks he's seeing like being dunked forcefully into cold water. He could recognize that gait anywhere, that lean precise stride, loping and efficient. That slicked-back hair, those steel brown eyes... 

It's been two years since Eames has seen Arthur, ever since the Eames had walked out on Arthur and their partnership had crumbled just like dust in that hotel room. 

Eames never heard news about Arthur after that. 

If Arthur hears Eames, he doesn't react to it. There's no response, no recognition in this Arthur's eyes. No banter, no teasing – merely a coldness to him that would leave any lesser man with a severe case of frostbite. 

Is this... _his_ Arthur? Eames hesitates. Is this is a trick of Eames' mind or something else entirely?

"... Arthur?" Eames asks again, unsteady and uncertain. The words sound so raw, so gutted in Eames’ mouth. "Are you–" _are you alive? Are you dead? Is this real?_

He reaches for his poker chip. 

But before he can trace the ridges for the familiar grooves and the slight nick in the lip, a shot rings out loud like a crack of lightning. 

_Bang_. 

And the last thing that Eames sees is Arthur and how he always remembers him: in his whip-black suit and a smoking gun in his hand. 

A single bullet tears through Eames' temples, and he is ripped open, pain lighting up every nerve in his body like a pinball machine – and he prays to god that yes, let this is only but a dream so he can finally wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I must credit the lovely anon who created the [AMAZING companion piece here](https://inceptionbigbang.tumblr.com/post/186660678629/inception-big-bang-2019-for-onefifthbusiness-art)


End file.
